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Re: Pseudoscience

peripherally relevant: while searching for a reference to N-rays I found:

http://cochise.biosci.arizona.edu/~art/Handout_479.html

First-day course prospectus,
The Art of Scientific Discovery Ecology 479-579

The Art of Scientific Discovery or Exercises in the Art of Inquiry

Tuesdays and Thursdays in BSW 510 from 14:00 to 15:15
3 credits

A. T. Winfree, 326 or 372 BSW: 621-3495, -3144 Office hours immediately after class

Here we attempt to cultivate problem-solving agility in context of scientific
investigations by examining how specific
problems were solved in the past, by 'inspirational readings,' and by tackling alone and
together selected puzzles for
pencil and paper and for simple lab manipulation. These exercises are intended as
'practice scrimmages' in strategy and
tactics of recognizing ignorance, of posing questions, of cultivating multiple alternative
solutions, of eliminating rejectable
candidate solutions, of spotting and purging mistakes. They are selected for minimal
reliance on knowledge of a subject
area, so that everyone is on an equal footing of unfamiliarity and so that you won't
already know 'the' solution and thus
find yourself unable to focus on method or unable to generate several alternative
solutions. Material is drawn from all the
sciences, often emphasizing biology; elementary mathematics and physics also provide
examples that should be
comprehensible to students from diverse backgrounds.

This not a lecture course. The objective is not to add to your store of useful facts. Nor
will you be passively stuffed with
sophistication and accordingly accredited. As in weight-lifting, you will derive from this
course as much as you invest in
time and effort: the professor is only directing your investments during these initial
months, hoping to leave you with
installed habits that will last a long time. Remember the weight-lifting metaphor. The
purpose of making this a formal
'course' is to provide you regularly scheduled opportunities to consciously cultivate
skills and personal style in problem
solving.

Some people suppose this cannot be done: you are born with innate ability or not, and
that's all there is to it. I think we
are all born with it and we can refine and enhance it about as much as we please. There
exists an immense diversity of
thinking styles between individuals. Evidence: widespread disagreement about almost
everything. Given persistent
diversity of styles, it seems likely that some styles are better than others for different
purposes or for different individuals.
If so then by getting acquainted with alternative styles and exercising some 'natural
selection' during exercises, you can
hope to prove to yourself that thinking is an improvable skill. In 'real life' we are so
intent on solutions to problems that we
seldom feel the leisure required to examine how we get them (or fail to). While swimming
with a goal in sight and a clock
running, you don't usually experiment with diverse modes of breathing. In this course we
do. There will be much choking
and sputtering, but it's OK here because not much depends on finishing first within this
one semester. We are trying to
improve your whole future life.

We have three main tools:

1) Group exercises to meet over twice weekly to share and purge the ideas we've had since
last meeting, and to
generate fresh results.

2) Readings:
Occasional xeroxed handouts, not listed here
Four paperbacks to buy and thoroughly digest and keep for years:

Adams (consulting engineer) Conceptual Blockbusting recent edition 1st 7 Chapters
Beveridge (M.D.) The Art of Scientific Investigation 11 Chapters
Judson (MacArthur Prize) TheSearch for Solutions 6 chapters: skip chapters 3, 5, 6
Carey, Scientific Method 1 and 2, skip 3, then 4 and 5

3) Problem sets for homework to allow you to practice intellectual gimmicks suggested by
the readings and class
exercises. Write down your approaches, your lucky insights, how you got into and out of
blind alleys. Keep a diary to
focus your mind on strategy and tactics, not just on the answer. The purpose of these
silly puzzles is to slow you down for
a few minutes so you can examine the working of your own mind. I will ask someone to
relate his experience with this
week's problem for 5 minutes at the beginning of each meeting. It is hard to develop
consciousness of how you do it, but
awareness is the first step to correction and improvement of any skill. Contrary to
widespread objection, it will not hobble
you like watching your feet while dancing. Use these homework puzzles to nucleate a
lifelong habit of doing a daily
'Gamesworth' of focused thought, as in the first hand-out (Platt: The Art of Creative
Thinking). This might be the most
important (potentially enduring) effect of the course. I will examine your daily
Gamesworth notebook at intervals during
the semester. I want you to log in and out of each session with the date and time. There
being about 120 days in the
semester, you will need at least that many pages, and probably quite a lot more, plus at
least 28 pages for as many class
sessions.

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Jack Uretsky wrote:

Hi all-
I would modify Kyle's remarks by changing "validity" to
"invalidity" in the 4th para of his posting. It is <never> possible
to conclude that a theory is valid.
Regards,
Jack

Adam was by constitution and proclivity a scientist; I was the same, and
we loved to call ourselves by that great name...Our first memorable
scientific discovery was the law that water and like fluids run downhill,
not up.
Mark Twain, <Extract from Eve's Autobiography>

On Tue, 14 Mar 2000, kyle forinash wrote:

There was a thread a few weeks back about pseudo-science and I just
ran across an essay by Paul Thagard titled 'Why Astrology is a
Pseudoscience' which gives an interesting definition of pseudoscience.

Thagard says:

"A theory or discipline which purports to be scientific is
pseudoscientific if and only if:

1. It has been less progressive than alternative theories over a long


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kyle
-----------------------------------------------------
kyle forinash 812-941-2390
kforinas@ius.edu
Natural Science Division
Indiana University Southeast
New Albany, IN 47150
http://Physics.ius.edu/
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